


ocean eyes

by jenny lind (Lilitu)



Series: The Greatest Showman [1]
Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry Charity Barnum, Kissing, Love, Ocean, True Love, drowning symbolism, jenny lind has really nice eyes, ocean eyes, ocean eyes/billie eilish, ocean symbolism, p.t. barnum is pretty awkward around jenny, song: ocean eyes, swedish nightingale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 07:12:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18219902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilitu/pseuds/jenny%20lind
Summary: I've never fallen from quite this high, falling into your ocean eyes.





	ocean eyes

Charity’s eyes are lakes, but Jenny Lind’s are oceans. P.T. Barnum’s been watching her from across the room, enthralled by the way she interacts with the people around her. She’s truly a nightingale, fluttering from one person to another. 

_ first meeting _

He nudges Phillip, who jumps. “My name is Phillip Carlyle. And this extraordinary gentleman next to me...Phineas Taylor Barnum.” She turns, all lithe limbs and rosy complexion.  _ A man could drown in her eyes,  _ he thinks before realizing he’s been staring for far too long. 

The niceties he’s prepared for meeting her slip away from him. She smiles, not showing her teeth, and curtsies gracefully. He flushes the color of her hair, stammering out his idea for her to perform in America. “Why me?” Her voice is like waves. “People come to my shows for the pleasure of being hoodwinked. Just once, I’d love to give them something real.” Her eyes study him for a heartbeat, and she smiles fully.

_ first performance _

Her first performance is a smashing success financially, as the tickets sell out within a week. He leaves the repertoire up to her; after all, she is the most famous singer in Europe for a reason. The song she chooses to sing is as beautiful as she is. As the audience rises to their feet, cheering for her with the sound of the waves, she casts a look at him, deep and unfathomable. He feels himself begin to drift out to sea. With another motion Barnum takes her hand, cold despite the heat of a thousand bodies, and they bow. 

_ one of many carriage scenes _

She lays her head on his shoulder as the carriage sways. Her curls fall like seaspray over his chest. Jenny gazes up at him with her ocean eyes and his feet don’t even come close to skimming the sea floor anymore. A gentle smile comes to her lips as she slumbers. He finds himself wanting to kiss her, to revel in everything that she is and Charity isn’t. 

She stirs, looking up at him from behind half closed eyelashes. He can’t tell if she knows what he was just thinking.  She makes a noncommittal sound and wraps her arms possessively around his waist, falling back asleep in an instant. He tucks a strand of hair behind the delicate shell of her ear. His fingers linger perhaps longer than is appropriate. 

_ dancing _

“The Swedish Nightingale, Miss Jenny Lind!” he exults in a ballroom after another successful performance, and when he finishes speaking, she clasps his hand to hers. He is scared then, because he senses himself about to drown, and he wants to. 

“Shall we dance?” she says, breaking the silence. She is still holding his hand. Or perhaps he is still holding hers. “Nightingales don’t dance,” he jokes, rewarded with a radiant smile. “The ocean does,” and she sidles over to the ballroom floor, and they dance together. Charity is reaching her hands out to him, but he can’t find it in himself to swim any longer.

_ final performance _

Her voice quivers and his knees go weak. She looks at the wings beseechingly, eyes filled with tears. He steps out and they dip into a bow together. When they straighten up, he puts his hands on her hip and the small of her back and brings his lips to hers. She startles for a moment before reciprocating, and he’s so drunk on her that he barely registers the camera flashes. 

_ end of movie _

He finds his wife alone on the beach, gazing out at the horizon. “You warned me...and I wouldn’t listen.” Charity accepts his murmured apologies without another word, and they embrace.

But as they do so, he looks at the sea and thinks of the girl with ocean eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> A small drabble I wrote after listening to Billie Eilish's Ocean Eyes and thinking of how Jenny Lind's eyes are very similarly colored. Some of the scenes are made up, but some come directly from the movie (what I can remember of it+a PDF of the script that I found online.) I'm likely going to write a series of these drabbles; not all of them will be Jenny Lind/P.T. Barnum. They won't all be couples, some will just be the characters' thoughts fleshed out. They'll probably vary in content/rating, but nothing sexually explicit.


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